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I wrote this brief start months ago and still don't have much more, but I figured it was about time for me to post something again.
Title: The Things Unchanged
Summary: This story is set 3 years after the end Entropy, but everything after that point is completely different. The background story is rather complicated and angsty, and I'm not entirely sure where the story's going, but it will lead to our girls together and happy.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own ideas.
Rating: I'd say PG at the moment. I have no idea what it will be later on.
Spoilers: Through Entropy.
Chapter 1~
"Get OFF my sister!" Dawn heard as she struggled with the vampire, but though the voice was familiar, it didn't belong to Buffy and it took her a moment to place. When the realization hit, the teen whipped her head around to see an angel's face, before everything turned to black.
The world swirled around her and the present faded into 3 years ago. Everything was broken, furniture, mirrors, and most of all Willow. Dawn had woken to the screaming as the redhead searched for her lover, but she now sat rocking back-and-forth on her bed with tears rolling down her cheeks and her lips silently mouthing 'Tara' over and over. All life was gone from the once-vibrant woman who had over the last few weeks been reclaiming herself. Dawn couldn't image what had happened to change things so drastically; Will had been so ecstatic after her coffee-date with the blonde the day before, and the teen had had high hopes that a reconciliation was on the way for her favorite couple.
Without looking up the redhead murmured softly for the younger girl's benefit "She's gone. Tara's gone. She left...in the night. Gone. She's gone Dawnie." Then the words stopped. Everything stopped.
Dawn was called back to consciousness by that long-lost voice calling her name.
"Don't move sweetie, your head's bleeding," Tara murmured softly, stroking the long brown hair.
"Tara..." Dawn moaned, unable to ask the thousands of questions swirling through her mind.
"It's alright, just rest now.... The vampire's gone, and I'll explain everything once you're better. Just rest..."
Dawn woke in the hospital with the vague memory of Tara carrying her there. She wondered if it had been a dream, the blonde witch finding and rescuing her; it wouldn't have been the first time Dawn dreamed of her return, but the teen doubted she could have imagined such a perfect, beautiful voice.
Only then did Dawn notice the figure beside her, slumped in the chair sound asleep, and began to wonder just how long she had been unconscious. "Buffy," she called softly, still too drugged to get the volume necessary to wake her sister.
"She's asleep Dawnie. First sleep she's gotten in two days," the angel-voice startled her, but also filled her with a deep joy: it was real, Tara was HERE!
"I.... If you.... Saved me...." Dawn struggled for coherence, fiercely annoyed at her inability to string the necessary words together to thank Tara for saving her life. Dawn knew she couldn't have won against Laurence and she hated that; Buffy could have destroyed him...The teen tried to tell herself it was only lack of experience that made her the weaker Slayer, but Dawn struggled to believe it. She feared there had been some mistake when she was called, and that she didn't have what it took to follow in her sister's footsteps.
"Shh, it's okay Sweetie...you don't have to say anything. That's what sisters do, we save each other. When you love someone," she murmured with a deep sadness in her voice, "you do everything you can to help them, no matter the consequences."
Her voice a little stronger and her head less foggy now that she had been awake for a few minutes, Dawn managed to express herself a bit more clearly this time. "You're talking about Willow...why you left."
Tara sighed, before giving Dawn a wary half-smile. "I’ve forgotten what it's like to be around people who truly know me. I'd forgotten you could read me like a book. Oh Dawn, it's so good to see you.... I'm sorry I was gone so long."
Feeling the once-familiar fingers curl around her own, Dawn decided to be brave, and so uttered the two words that had filled her mind since seeing Tara again.
"Tell me."
Tara didn’t know why she was here—or at least why now. Her life was going well; she loved her job and her house and all of London. She had no reason to come back… except she couldn’t move on. The truth was, though she hated to admit it to herself, she knew exactly why she’d come back now, but the reason scared her; it had been 3 years, one kiss shouldn’t send her running home.
Funny that she still thought of Sunnydale as home after living in England longer than she’d been in the small California town. Funny that she hardly ever thought of her life before college, before Willow, except to miss here beloved mama almost every day. Tara had lived in Deer Springs for 18 years, but when she though of home, the Summers House where she had lived only half a year still came to mind, and Willow. Willow was, among so many other things, home.
The blonde knew no matter how much time passed her life would always be in Sunnydale, with Dawn and Buffy and Xander and Anya and most of all Willow. She had had to leave, but Tara’s heart had stayed behind, forever with her soulmate.
Even though Tara knew Sunnydale would always be home for her, she wasn’t delusional enough to expect a warm welcome; she had left 3 years ago without a word, and hadn’t contacted her family once in that time. She’d made sure they were okay of course, Dawn and Willow especially, through Mr. Giles.
She knew of Anya and Xander’s reunion after her own disappearance, and had seen pictures of their second, much more successful, wedding; she knew Buffy had eventually gone back to college but was still struggling to complete a degree—in Psychology of all things; she knew Dawn was a good driver, and had joined choir her junior year, and graduated near the top of her class, and was about to start at UC Sunnydale, and still cried when anyone mentioned pancakes; Tara knew her name was never used around Will, and that the redhead had never seemed to heal from the soul wound her lover had inflicted. But Tara also knew that Willow was successful, had a career she loved and was good at teaching computer science, and that it was her choice to continue living with Buffy and Dawn as she had more than enough money for her own place.
Tara suspected that Willow’s life, like her own, was only happy on the surface, empty underneath.
Mr. Giles visited Sunnydale a few times a year, even more now that Dawn had been called as a Slayer, and after each trip he brought Tara back pictures. She knew that the only reason he hadn’t moved back there after Faith’s death was her; he didn’t want to leave Tara alone.
That was another reason she’d come, to show Mr. Giles she was okay. Tara had come to think of him, as she knew the others did, like a father and she didn’t want to hold him back, or be the reason he was unhappy. He’d helped her so much three years ago, given her a place to live, friendship, and the coven that taught her the control she needed. Mr. Giles had been there when she couldn’t let anyone else.
Tara was suddenly pulled out of her reverie by the sound of a nearby struggle, and her mind flashed to one of the slayers she loved, or worse, her own dear Willow, locked in battle. Without a conscious thought the witch was running frantically toward the noise.
And then she saw it, little Dawnie trapped under a vicious killer. Of course, she knew Dawn was no longer the helpless teen she’d known and loved, but her first instinct was to interfere on her behalf. Her hand was already itching to cast as she ran toward the struggle, but she knew she had to first distract the vamp or risk hurting Dawn, so she screamed the first words that came to mind.
She heard herself yell “get OFF my sister” before the familial term registered, and if she had had the luxury perhaps she would have questioned the wisdom of her word choice; after all, she had never referred to Dawn as her sister while in front of the younger woman, and after three years apart wouldn’t have seemed the wisest time to lay that claim. Only in her time away had Tara truly realized how much this family meant to her… this family she had been forced to give up and abandon. She cringed internally as she thought of all the pain she had caused, to those she loved and herself, before turning away from those thoughts; they could be dealt with later, when her little girl wasn’t in danger.
Tara watched in horror as her words caused Dawn to lose focus, watched as the vampire slammed her head into the ground… and felt herself fill with rage, and the power of the Goddess. “Quisque gutta sanguinis quae cepisti in venis ferveat,” she whispered the words that would boil his blood, burning him from the inside out.
It took less than a second for the vampire to turn to fire then dust, and Tara was at Dawn’s side in an instant. She assessed the damage quickly, finding that while there was damage it was far from life-threatening, and healed what little she could before floating the girl above the ground a few inches and gingerly lifting her. Tara still remembered the shortest walk from this particular cemetery to Sunnydale Memorial, the closest hospital, and began her trek at a run, Dawn’s weight lightened considerably by a small spell. Tara spared a brief thought for the oddity of her life that she knew by heart how to get from every cemetery to every hospital in a town she hadn’t lived in for the three years, then returned her attention to the task of getting her darling Dawnie to a safe place...
_________________
"To days to come."
"All my love to long ago.
I hope, we'll have more happy ever after
I hope, we can all live more fearlessly...
~Jas
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....so you should update cuz it was really intregeing...i wanna know why Tara left.
hangin on for more 
